Alek Manoah takes first step toward MLB resurgence with long way ahead

Alek Manoah was sent down by the Toronto Blue Jays after a rough start to the season. On Sunday, Manoah had a promising outing with the organization’s Double-A team.

Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Alek Manoah entered the season with high expectations. After all, he made the All-Star game last year and finished third in American League Cy Young voting. But this season, Manoah had a fall from grace, putting up a 6.36 ERA and a 1-7 win-loss record, while striking 48 pitchers as opposed to 42 walks in 13 starts. With that, the team decided to send Manoah down to the Florida Complex League.

Manoah notably had a rough outing against the New York Yankees’ FCL team, surrendering 11 earned runs on 10 hits (including two home runs) while walking two batters in 2.2 innings pitched. That made Manoah the subject of plenty of jokes on social media for said performance.

But this Sunday, Manoah had a must better showing when playing for the Blue Jays’ Double-A affiliate, the New England Fisher Cats. Facing the Portland Seadogs, Manoah struck out 10 batters and allowed just one run on three hits in five innings.

Blue Jays: Alek Manoah bounces back with a strong performance in Double-A

After the game, Manoah spoke about his journey down to the minors and working his way back up to the majors, and his mindset regarding those who want him to succeed and those who want to kick him while he’s down. The quote below comes courtesy of Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi.

"“It’s been a lot of ups and downs,” Manoah said, h/t Sportsnet. “Being able to figure everything out and understand that there are a lot of people that are rooting for me, having a great support system around me and also understanding there are a lot of people that like to kick me when I’m down.“And that’s good because that means a lot of people want to see me down and that means they don’t want to see me come back up. And I’m ready to come back up. I’m ready to be a tiger. I’m ready to be a horse on that mound and I’m ready to help our team win, you know?” he continued. “That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned through this whole thing, is that you can kind of get down on yourself, you can think you’re not good, you can get emotional about it but nobody cares. Just got to go out there and compete and when your back’s against the wall, don’t lay down. Just keep fighting.”"

It was a promising showing from Manoah, as he recorded the most strikeouts in a game since Oct. 2, 2021, when he struck out 10 Baltimore Orioles batters. That stat comes courtesy of MILB.

Given his outings down at rookie league and Double-A, the Blue Jays may very well want to see Manoah pitch in a couple of more games n the minor league system before deciding to call him back up. It’s unknown when his next start will be, but his latest outing shows that he does have the stuff that made him one of the best starting pitchers in the American League last year.